The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Is there a mod out there which will allow me to progress somehow through the Thieves Guild missions wothout being a ♥♥♥♥? I'm at the mission where I have to extort money from 3 people, and they're seemingly innocent. I've got 22k GP, I'd like to just lie to Brynhojf and carry on. I also can't get my unusual gem assayed without doing this. It's annoying.

Hardly innocent - they owe money and refuse to pay up. You're not just randomly shaking them down. And doing it the mobster way that gets suggested by the other thieves *does* save you from having to beat them up for their debts.

who cares? its a video game and not real life. If your going to get THAT upset then what about all those travellers/bandits etc you have murdered in cold blood and then stolen stuff from. Some of them could have had families/children etc.

I haven't murdered anyone in cold blood. I wait for bandits to attack me before I attack them, and I don't kill anyone who isn't being a knob in some way. I haven't got any bounty in any hold yet, I don't steal anything, and I always take the 'good' path or options when I get them. The Thieves Guild are a load of ♥♥♥♥-hats. I'd happily kill them if I could, but Brynholf is immortal apparently.

And these people are being shaken down for protection money, they haven't taken out loans. They don't justificably owe anything to the Thieves Guild.

This is NEWS TO THE WORLD! Go! Tell the people that thieves steal from people!

lol

Yeah, these thieves aren't the goody-goody robin hood types from Oblivion, they are actual THEIVES. They steal from anyone, as long as they have coin, and the only people they care about are themselves and each other. And in other news, the reson you're shaking those people down is because they owe the guild protection money and won't pay up, they didn't take out loans. The guild does it mobster style :D

Also, if shaking those fools down is too...... evil for you, then I think that mod is your best bet, because you're just gonna keep doing bad things to nice people, just because they have stuff you want. Because it's the Theives Guild, that's what they do.

What I don't get is why your first job is shaking people down. As a thief, you see, you should be just stealing the money from them while they're not looking, not busting the place up for protection money. That would be like, after joining the Dark Brotherhood, your first contract was to save a kitten stuck up in a tree, rather than murdering somebody.

I don't mind that Bethseda wants to put 'evil' questline options in for people who like to be horrible to other people (in a gameworld of course lol), but it strikes me that by omitting some alternatives, they're neglecting part of their playerbase and also irritating some poeple, like me, who want to do the quests because I'm somewhat of a completist, and these things are in my journal.

I've noew got 60k in gold. Adding a dialogue choice for me to flat out lie to the Thief questgiver and pay their debt myself would have taken minimal programming time.

Alternative;ly, If I had the option to abandon these quests and they'd vanish from the journal or simply fail, that would be cool too. As it stands, I speak to someone, and before I have a chance to say 'Hm, you weant me to go smash up some poor guy's pot or threaten a woman.s boyfriend? No thanks.', The quest has been added to my list. And there are other quests locked behind it. I have to take an unusual gem to an assayer. He won't speak to me until I do the Thieves Guild quests.

Actually, you'll find plenty of quests have portions that turn out to be locked behind joining a faction.

The two that annoy me most on my main (a Thief), and thus come to mind most easily, at the moment are "Forbidden Legend" (the quest you get for reading "Lost Legends") and the Stones of Barenziah quest since you HAVE to join the College in order to go through the Saarthal quest. :( [also see you have to buy Proudspire (I was happy enough with just Breezehome :(, and join or destroy the Dark Brotherhood for two of the Stones - annoying!]

What I don't get is why your first job is shaking people down. As a thief, you see, you should be just stealing the money from them while they're not looking, not busting the place up for protection money. That would be like, after joining the Dark Brotherhood, your first contract was to save a kitten stuck up in a tree, rather than murdering somebody.

Well, "thief" is a rather broad term, really just someone who takes something that does not belong to them. And this thieves guild is less about the stealing, more about the coin. They'll take it any way they can get it. Sneaking into some poor fool's house, and robbing them blind, snatching someone's valuables right out of they're pockets, and even changing ledgers so the merchants won't notice when some of they're stock goes missing. It's not much of a stretch to see this kind of organization demanding protection money from the shopkeepers in they're home city. Or that some of these merchants would refuse to pay up after word got around that the guild had fallen on hard times, and was supposedly less powerful. Plus, I think saving that kitten is more a job for the companions ;)